from Suzette Cross
Nicole Shelton
1. A prominent theme I saw time and again in the Hidden Curriculum
Package is the admonition to teachers as agents of social change.
Throughout my Graduate studies, it has been reinforced that teachers
are educators with the ability to transform their worlds, and their
students’ worlds. Subsequently, as evidenced in the first article
(introductory article about what the hidden and null curriculum is) in
the package “The Hidden and Null Curriculums: An Experiment in
Collective Educational Biography” we are asked by Suzette Ahwee et al.
to become, “…reflective and inquire into matters more critically, with
the goal of improving their own instructional practice,” (p. 41).
The article I decided to chose and focus on was by Mollie V.
Blackburn, “Disrupting the (hereto) normative: Exploring literacy
performances and identity work with queer youth.” As in the
introductory article, Ms. Blackburn posits that literacy educators are
responsible for fostering opportunities by which students can read and
write in a respected space about matters that can effect social
change. It is once again seen where the teacher is given the task as
agents of change since so much is expected of teachers.
2. In light of the above theme, 3 articles I would like to explore in
more depth is:
a. Alejandro Lopez and McClellan Hall’s, “Letting in the Sun:
Native Youth Transform
Their School with Murals:
b. Christopher T. Vang’s article, “Minority parents should know
more about school
culture and its impact on their children’s education and
c. Daniel G. Solorzano’s, “From Racial Stereotypying and Deficit
Discourse”
In general, I found these articles interesting because they allow me
to explore concerns and problematic areas that are somewhat prevalent
in my urban public school community. For one thing, the act of
students doing and exploring art as a curriculum and in expressing
their learning, challenges the State’s idea of how learning can be
expressed. State exams and the test-prep way educators are forced to
teach in light of the bureaucracy we have to deal with and the
backlash and pointing of fingers that goes between our Mayor,
Chancellor, Board of Education, and the UFT, demands that certain
areas of learning are nullified. Moreover, parents are of the opinion
that students are being given a truly rounded education, when they are
very unaware of what is actually taking place in the classroom and the
absence of topics not discussed at all with their children. This
ignorance of what goes on in schools veils what is happening as well
as the true position of their child and the academic progress or lack
possessed. Minority and the social economically challenges students
are seen more and more in studies as underequipped to excel in
secondary and tertiary educational settings. Our schools are
indirectly stereotyping and teaching curriculums that foster deficit
discourse. For example, immigrants, whether English speakers or
English Language Learners are only given one year in which to sit the
State test. There is much to say about this practice, but this is not
the forum for same. However, suffice it to say that as educators, we
all know this is a definite recipe for disaster and most certainly –
failure.
3. The pedagogical implications are that I must find ways in my
classroom to cover topics and introduce issues, concerns, ideas,
experiences that my minority students may never have the opportunity
of exploring at home. It is my responsibility as an educator to make
their school experience both an academic and social experience of a
lifetime and one in which they feel safe, secure, and confident in
expression themselves.